Migrant families return

S.J. camps a fleeting home for thousands

FRENCH CAMP - Piles of duffel bags rested at doorsteps. Trucks packed with clothing and toys and televisions lumbered into parking spots. Women swept dust from bedrooms they hadn't slept in for three months.

FRENCH CAMP - Piles of duffel bags rested at doorsteps. Trucks packed with clothing and toys and televisions lumbered into parking spots. Women swept dust from bedrooms they hadn't slept in for three months.

On Thursday morning, families began returning to San Joaquin County's three migrant housing camps - one sign of the start of a new season for those who work in the region's fields and canneries and for the children who travel with them.

"We move from place to place to place," Antonio Heredia laughed as his wife, Sandra, dusted off mattresses and stacked pans in kitchen cupboards. "Like gypsies."

Each fall, when the camp closes, the family moves to Michoacan, Mexico. In the spring, when agricultural jobs return, so do they.

Antonio Heredia came to the United States for the first time when he was 11. Sandra was born in California and grew up on Mathews Road, yards away from the house where she and Antonio are raising their sons, Anthony, 10, and Alexander, 4.

The boys are among the county's roughly 11,000 migrant students, many of whom are set to return to classrooms here in coming weeks, often after months away.

"When am I going back to school?" Anthony, a fourth-grader, asked his dad.

"Lunes," Heredia said. Monday.

Anthony expects to return to Maria Romero's class at French Camp Elementary School.

But children aren't always able to go back to the schools they left months earlier, said Anne Freitas, who works with migrant families in the Stockton Unified School District. "It might be an overflow school," she said. "They go back, but a place has not been saved for them."

Sometimes, Freitas said, families and San Joaquin County schools arrange to have children complete packets of work while they are in Mexico.

Other children temporarily attend Mexican schools, but enrollment obstacles can make that difficult, she said.

In past years, Anthony has spent the winter months enrolled in Primaria Benito Juarez, a school for elementary-age children.

This time, though, his mom wanted him to take a break. He surfed in Acapulco, he cut his leg riding a bike and needed eight stitches, he ate posole on Christmas Day.

Compared to that, he said, going back to school would be "OK."

This year, Anthony's dad expects to go to school as well.

"I'm going to take English classes," he said. First, he will look for a job.